Chapter Nineteen: A Great Calamity

The bus driver's palm clearly slapped the air, yet I distinctly heard a thunderous crack, and at that very moment, a horrible scream echoed in my ear. Then, before my eyes, a crimson figure appeared out of thin air exactly where the bus driver's palm had struck, only to vanish in an instant. It flickered next about ten meters away, and the last time I glimpsed it, it was already hundreds of meters distant, perched atop a hill.

The bus driver strode after it for two or three hundred meters, but the figure moved with such impossible speed that, in the end, he could only return in frustration.

Wang Feiyang and I stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the empty coffin, unable to make sense of what had just happened.

At this moment, the bus driver walked up to us, his face dark and his eyes blazing with anger.

He raised his hand toward Wang Feiyang’s face as if to strike him, but after a half-second's hesitation, he redirected his palm toward me. Without warning, a resounding slap landed on my cheek.

The blow was so forceful that I staggered back two steps, my face instantly swelling on one side.

Rage flared in me. All my life, no one but my grandfather had dared strike me. I was about to retaliate, but when my eyes met the bloodshot stare of the bus driver, a chill ran through my heart. Not only did I lose the urge to fight back, I even dared not meet his gaze.

At the same time, I was struck by a vague sense of familiarity in his eyes, as if I had met him long ago, but I was certain I hadn’t seen him before the day I returned from the Chen family’s funeral shop.

“Who are you?” Wang Feiyang, utterly unafraid, asked in a flat voice.

The bus driver glared at Wang Feiyang, his gaze just as cold. “Who I am is unimportant. But let me make this clear: you two have invited disaster upon yourselves today. Soon, you’ll see just how grave a calamity you’ve brought down.”

He glanced at the phone I’d tossed on the ground and barked at me, “I called you, sent you message after message, told you not to dig up that coffin. Are you deaf or blind?”

I froze. So the call had never been from Zuo Daoyin—it was this bus driver all along. But wait—how did he know my phone number?

While I was still lost in thought, the bus driver was already heading down the mountain. He looked back and snapped, “Why are you still standing there? Do you really want to die here?”

His words carried a peculiar authority that made me unable to argue. Wang Feiyang and I could only follow closely behind him.

The whole way down the mountain, my mind churned with questions. Luo Xiu had told us to dig up the coffin and find a master to perform rites for Yang Li’s corpse, to quell her resentment. But when we did as told, there was no corpse in the coffin. What was going on?

From the traces sealing the red coffin, I was sure it hadn’t been disturbed in the twenty years since my grandfather and his companions buried it. Yet Luo Xiu had said that, two decades ago, they’d buried Yang Li alive—a girl with the Purple Star fate—to change my destiny. So why was the coffin empty?

Moreover, coffin nails and yellow talismans had been used—tools for subduing ghosts and exorcising evil. Could it be that my grandfather and his friends had not buried a living person, but something else entirely?

That “something else” could mean anything: ghost, demon, or some invisible, untouchable thing. What exactly was it? What was their purpose?

I studied the bus driver’s back as he walked ahead. There was something familiar about his gait, yet I still couldn’t recall any prior connection. I began to speculate about his identity. Why had he appeared here out of nowhere, warning us not to open the coffin, just like Zuo Daoyin?

His arrival was a riddle—just as sudden as when he’d shown up at the Chen family’s funeral shop. Neither Wang Feiyang nor I knew him, so he definitely wasn’t from Baijie Street. Yet he seemed to know everything about this whole affair.

Soon, we reached the parking spot at the foot of the mountain. The bus driver wordlessly yanked open the door of the small truck and climbed in.

When he saw Wang Feiyang and me standing there, dazed, he glared at us. “Get in, now.”

So we climbed into the truck, moving mechanically. The air inside was heavy with the smell of strong liquor. The bus driver wrinkled his brow and scolded us again, “You two drank and then drove up the mountain? Are you tired of living?”

Neither of us answered. I didn’t dare speak—something instinctive made me wary of the bus driver, not out of simple fear, but like a junior before an elder. Wang Feiyang, for his part, was too indifferent to bother responding.

During the drive down, we were silent for a long time, each lost in our thoughts. Finally, as we approached Baijie, I couldn’t hold back any longer and asked the bus driver who he was, why he’d come here, why he’d stopped us from opening the coffin, and now that it was open, what consequences would follow?

The bus driver said nothing, only pressing the accelerator harder. He didn’t stop in Baijie, but drove straight to the county seat, finally halting in the residential quarters of a hospital.

Once we got out, the bus driver led us towards an eight-story apartment building. Wang Feiyang and I exchanged puzzled looks, unsure of his intentions. At first we lingered behind, unwilling to follow, but when he turned and said he was taking us to find the truth, we hurried after him.

My head spun with questions. I didn’t know what truth the bus driver wanted us to uncover. As far as I was concerned, Luo Xiu had told us everything: the ghost was Yang Li, and to break the curse we had to open the coffin and perform rites for her corpse. But with the coffin now open and no sign of Yang Li, that was the mystery that gnawed at me the most. And now the bus driver claimed he’d lead us to the truth—could it be hidden in this apartment building? Was Yang Li’s corpse here?

Burdened by confusion, we finally arrived at the seventh floor of the old building. The bus driver stopped at the door furthest down the hall and pressed the doorbell.

The door quickly opened, revealing an old woman with snow-white hair. Seeing the three of us at her doorstep, she looked at us with puzzled eyes and asked whom we were looking for.

Wang Feiyang and I were stunned into silence, unable to respond, even more bewildered by the bus driver’s intentions. He’d brought us here, claiming he’d reveal the truth, yet the old woman clearly knew neither us nor him.

Then the bus driver did something that left me utterly baffled. He suddenly turned, dragged me forward, and in a commanding tone said, “Kneel and pay your respects.”

I was dumbfounded, and Wang Feiyang was just as confused. The old woman grew flustered, waving her hands and asking what on earth we were doing, insisting it wasn’t necessary.

But the bus driver ignored her. He pressed down on my shoulder with such strength that I couldn’t resist—my legs buckled and I knelt before the old woman with a thud.

He forced my head down, making me knock it three times on the floor in a deep bow.

Afterwards, he tossed me aside and said to the old woman, “You must remember his name—he’s Wu Dao.”

At these words, the old woman’s expression changed dramatically. After a long moment of shock, she hurried over, gently stroking my face and murmured, “Time flies. You’ve grown so much.”

I looked up at the old woman, noticing for the first time that, despite her white hair, her face bore few wrinkles and showed little sign of age. Her youthful features were at odds with her snowy hair.

I was about to speak when the bus driver seized me again, preparing to leave.

The old woman said, “Since you’re already here, why not come in for a drink of water before you go?”

“No,” the bus driver refused her politely but firmly. Then, with a stern look, as if warning her, he said, “She’s back. You’d better leave here at once—the sooner, the better.”